Suicide Prevention Study Finds Surprising Results

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The Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly: Collaborative Trial (PROSPECT) used a care-management approach to treat depression. In the trial, doctors adhered to special treatment protocols, and trained care managers followed up with patients. Overall results have been good, but investigators hoped the trial might also reduce disparities between white and minority populations.

Now Yuhua Bao, Ph.D., of the Department of Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College, and colleagues, report in the June Archives of General Psychiatry that racial and ethnic minorities had worse outcomes than their non-Hispanic white peers. However, they also noted that, regardless of race or ethnicity, less-educated patients benefited more from the PROSPECT intervention than did patients with a college education. “Adding culturally tailored strategies to collaborative depression care management models may be needed to extend their benefits to minority patients,” the researchers emphasized.

Read more about the PROSPECT project in Psychiatric News at
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/10/9.2.full.